Depending On God
DEPENDING ON GOD
2 CORINTHIANS 1:8-11
Paul’s severe suffering does not lead to despair but to trust and praise as he sees past and present deliverance as a promise for the future.
A second reason for Paul’s thankfulness of spirit is given in this section: he had been rescued from the jaws of death! In relating the experience of a crisis in Asia which exposed him to mortal danger he makes it plain that it was only by God’s mercy that he and his fellow missionaries had been saved (1:10), yet God works by the prayers of his people, and Paul does not forget this side of the story as well (1:11). Those who prayed for him are invited to share his gladness, and there is no finer stimulus to our prayers than when we hear from friends that they are rejoicing in an answer to our praying on their behalf.
The precise nature of “the affliction we experienced in Asia” is not easy to pinpoint. Some suggest that the phrase alludes to the riot in the Ephesian theater (Acts 19:23-41; that may have been a time of social anarchy which followed the assassination of the proconsul). 1 Corinthians 15:32, the famous description of “fighting with beasts at Ephesus,” may refer to the same incident, or more likely to some other hazard to which his life was exposed. Other scholars found a clue in the phrase “the sentence of death” (1:9), which may be a technical term for a death sentence in a civil court. If this is the meaning, does it imply that Paul was arrested, tried and faced with the prospect of death? A hint of this may underlie certain verses in Philippians (1:20ff.,30; 2:17; 3:11), if that letter belongs to the middle period of Paul’s ministry, ie the time of his Ephesian ministry. Alternatively, it may be more simply believed that Paul suffered an acute illness which threatened his life. At all events, it was extremely serious and he was marvelously delivered by divine assistance and human prayer.
Note 1:11: a Greek word of fifteen letters is translated “you must help by prayer.” There are three ideas in the verb:
Meditation Paul’s deadly affliction is unknown to us; but no extremity is too great for the God of resurrection (1:9): see Ephesians 1:19ff.